How Getting PR Actually Works

Alright folks, you want to get major press? Here's how you do it.

Aaron Yoon is a PhD student at the Harvard Business School. That's the first thing you do, get into HBS :) But seriously, lesson #1 is do something that makes people notice you, that gives you some credibility. It doesn't have to be HBS, it could be something a lot easier, like becoming the head of the Australian Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong (not saying that's super easy, it's probably not, but probably easier than getting into HBS). And if you can't become the head of something, create your own organization or event series and then use that as your credibility. Set yourself apart.

Aaron is doing research, which means he comes across interesting findings in the data he's looking at. That's lesson #2, find some information that's interesting/valuable. In this case, he found something that's particularly interesting because it has to do with China, which is a huge market that is attracting a lot of attention right now. That's lesson #3, focus on stuff that a lot of people are paying attention to, or at least a lot of the people you care to get in front of. Because Aaron has some proprietary data, and it's relevant to a lot of people, he now has something of value that he can give to a journalist.

Lesson #4 - network. Two weeks ago Aaron didn't know me, and I didn't know him. But Aaron knows Kyle, and Kyle knows me. So Aaron asks Kyle if he knows anyone who can help him get some publicity for his research on China, and Kyle says "Yeah, my buddy Josh lives in China and is involved in PR stuff, he knows a lot of people, let me introduce you." Kyle makes the introduction, and Aaron sends me a pitch. If Aaron had just sent me a pitch, without the introduction, I never would have responded. I get lots of pitches. I get lots of pitches from impressive people, but I still have to pass up on most of them. I just don't have enough time to respond to them. In this case I definitely would have passed on helping Aaron, because what Aaron wants to get published has absolutely nothing to do with what I write about. But since Aaron is a friend of a friend, I've gotta take a look, right?

As it turns out, I've got two friends who might be interested in what Aaron wants to get published. One works for the New York Times in Asia, the other for Bloomberg. I forwarded Aaron's email to both of them (Lesson #5, make it easy to forward your pitch). My NYT connection turned out to have left the publication, but his email telling me so included an address for his replacement, so I forwarded the email to that guy. He responded, said it was interesting, but they still wouldn't cover it. Strike #1. I didn't hear back from my Bloomberg contact for 10 days. Then I got this today https://www.bloomberg.com/…/chinese-companies-can-stand-mor….

Boom. Published. I never even followed up. One email, and done. I didn't know he was going to publish it until he sent me the link.

Why did Chris Balding publish it? Because he knows me. We've met in person. We've had lunch a few times. I've been to his house. We get along. We've developed a relationship. Why did I listen to Aaron's pitch? Because it came through a friend of mine. Why did my friend listen to Aaron's pitch? Because Aaron is his friend. That's how you do PR. You build real relationships. You don't send an email to 200 writers you don't know saying "Please write about me, I'm so awesome and my company is so deserving!"

Do PR the right way. Build real relationships. It seems harder, but it's actually easier, because it actually works.

Want to learn more about how to get PR? Join my Influencer Inc Facebook group. Yeah, I know it's funny to advertise a Facebook group on LinkedIn, but until LinkedIn fixes their groups technology to work as well as FB, FB it is.